


Little Duck

by Grace_d



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Creepy, Dark Fairytale, F/M, Halloween, Horror, In The Woods, dark!everlark, supernatural themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 02:36:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21236759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grace_d/pseuds/Grace_d
Summary: A rustling comes from the thicket behind her and she stiffens, peering from her periphery and reaching for the knife at her belt. More rustling and Katniss turns her head. A hand extends from the scrubby trees, small and so thin the knuckles plead escape from the skin. The hand freezes, caught, then withdraws into the undergrowth. Katniss catches a glimpse of sharp eyes, sapphire blue, between the shivering leaves.“Hello there.” Katniss says.The eyes disappear.





	Little Duck

The fallen tree, sitting at the invisible line between the small wooded area and the moors, is as good a place as any other to lunch on the land. Katniss brushes back the log before sitting, unfolding the carefully wrapped handkerchief from around a cheese bun, an apple and a drop biscuit. 

She crosses her ankles before her, taps the toes of her leather boots together as she chews. A breeze traces across the moor, pushing back the mist and bringing the soft rich smell of peat, of deep earth decomposing and hidden pools of water. Before the fog can roll back in she has eaten, taken up her bow and arrow again, ready to return to the woods and continue her hunt. 

Mindful of what her father told her, she leaves the small tesserae biscuit, set out on the log as a tribute. 

The next day she returns, the biscuit is gone but grainy evidence of it remains. Katniss smiles at the thought of it being pecked apart, brushes the crumbs from in between the rough bark, and sits. Maybe even by some animals that lay in her canvas bag, dead now. Shot clean through the eye. 

She unties her handkerchief, knotted twice, to find another perfect picnic for one. 

A rustling comes from the thicket behind her and she stiffens, peering from her periphery and reaching for the knife at her belt. More rustling and Katniss turns her head. A hand extends from the scrubby trees, small and so thin the knuckles plead escape from the skin. The hand freezes, caught, then withdraws into the undergrowth. Katniss catches a glimpse of sharp eyes, sapphire blue, between the shivering leaves 

“Hello there.” Katniss says. 

The eyes disappear. 

“It’s okay,” Katniss keeps her voice low, and soft like a song. “I won’t hurt you.” 

A pause, and then a small child hops from the undergrowth, pale as bone with a shock of disheveled silver-gold hair. Their bright eyes consider Katniss uncertainly, fingers digging into the dirt. 

“Are you hungry?” Katniss asks, because surely they are, all elbows and knobbly knees and tensed to flee. 

The child tilts their head. 

“Hungry? We can share,” Katniss waves the cheese bun towards the child, cooing and coaxing. The scent carries through the air, oily rosemary and thyme, the bun still carrying a last ember of warmth from the oven. 

The child springs forwards, snatching away the bread, and dives away into the undergrowth again. 

“Hey!” Katniss jumps to her feet and follows, but beyond the thicket the woods are bare. 

“Fast little sprite.” Katniss mutters to herself as she inspects small scratches on her hand from the child’s sharp nails, pearls of blood seeping free. 

She leaves a peel of apple as her tribute, robbed of the rest of her lunch, and continues on her way. 

The next day the child crawls free of the woods as Katniss works open the knotted material. They sit on their hunches, looking warily at Katniss. 

“Oh hello again.” Katniss tries to soften around her eyes, to make her face welcoming. 

The child copies her smile, the edges of their mouth twitching as the gesture doesn’t fit their face. The movement is so sweet in gentle offering. Katniss can see the blue of their veins under thin skin, the hungry hollows beneath their shift. Far too light for the autumn chill. 

“Shall we sup?” Katniss asks, and pats the log beside her. 

The child comes towards Katniss, still in crouch, weight rocking from foot to foot. They glance at Katniss’s game bag, heavy with still cooling bodies of her prey. 

“It’s alright, little duck.” Katniss encourages. 

The child tilts their head in question. 

“You know,” Katniss says, and mimes the child’s waddle, “Quack quack.” 

“Quack.” The child says, breath light as air. 

“Quack.” Katniss nods, and picks up the cheese bun, intending to split it in two. 

The child snatches it from her hands then backs away. 

“Okay.” Katniss laughs. “Little duck doesn’t like to share.” 

“Quack quack.” The child says, and with a warning look, slips back into the undergrowth. 

The next day the child returns to greedily snatch up both halves of the cheese bun from Katniss’s hands, only to disappear into the thicket again, footsteps so light in the darkness of the afternoon that Katniss can’t track them beyond the first layer of trees. 

Where they ran to, Katniss doesn’t know, her cabin is the only one for miles, and town is another mile beyond that. Surely no child so wild has parents that love them. Surely no one would miss such a child. 

The day after, Katniss chooses a trap in place of a hunt. She spreads a thick flannel blanket across a dry patch of ground, lays the food upon it, and sits further away, on the log. The child slips from the trees like a shadow from the mist, low and slippery. 

“I won’t make you share.” Katniss gestures to the blanket. 

Katniss begins to hum, a song of soft meadows and daisies in the wind. The child hops towards their food, as though their shins were longer than their thighs. They reach the edge of the blanket and fall upon the food. 

When the child is finished Katniss begins to softly sing. The child lays down, rubbing themselves against the blanket, sliding their limbs across the flannel in a sleepy stretch. 

Katniss creeps closer. 

The child’s eyes snap open. 

Katniss holds out her palms, gently soothes them with her song, and the child rolls away, turning their back to Katniss. She continues forwards, keeping low. The child goes rigid when Katniss’s hand touches their thin shoulder blade, but rolls towards Katniss, eyes her carefully. 

Katniss sits next to the child on the blanket, pulling leaves from their hair, gently working free knots and brushing dirt from the thick mat. The child drifts into sleep on the moors, golden eyelashes fluttering in a dream, cheeks glowing pink from the bread and the nip of the cool mist. 

Katniss is sure the child is a girl, no more than five, and as lovely as the morning dew. 

The girl wakes with a start, blinking up at Katniss. She reaches up and with enchanting shyness traces a cold fingertip across Katniss’s brow. She smiles. 

Katniss wraps the blanket around her and sets her on her feet, scooping up her game bag and bow and arrow. They follow the treeline, walking towards the pathway into town. The child walks placidly beside Katniss, cool hand in Katniss’s warm one, feet barely disrupting the leaves along the path. 

They reach the fork in the road, the dirt that branches away from the forest and into the moorland and Katniss releases the girl’s hand to readjust her equipment. A rustle and Katniss glances back. 

The girl is gone. 

Katniss runs all the way back to the village alone. She barges in through the back door of the bakery, skidding before the baker with a violent halt. She vibrates with excitement. 

“Peeta.” She breathes. “Tomorrow I need lunch for two.” 

He drops the carton of eggs he holds on the floor, a half dozen shells smashing together. The yellow yolks is streaked with the broken remains of blood. He sweeps her up and kisses her soundly. 

“Finally,” he sighs into her mouth, “finally.” 

One floury hand drops to her stomach. 

She pushes it away, hands trembling. 

“Not like that.” She says. “I found this one.” 

She guides him to a stool before the hearth, then kneels before him. The firelight flickers off his face as she tries to explain, to tell him all about the child alone in the woods. How her colouring is just like his, how her cheekbones might as well be Katniss’s own. She tries to lace their fingers together, to urge him, but they are trembling too hard. 

Peeta grips her fingers firmly and pulls them up against his lips, kissing their joined hand. 

“If you think so, she’s perfect.” He promises. 

The next day, they take a whole bag full of bakery goods, another blanket and spare clothes, heavy woollen socks. Peeta packs the bag up with shaking hands, his colour high in his excitement. They close the door to their warm cabin firmly, and walk out to where the trees meet the moor. 

The forest crowds in on one side, the fog from the other, the smell of decomposing plant and animals thick. 

They sit at the edge of the blanket and Katniss begins to sing. Peeta glances about, as if to take in every inch of the borderland at once, eyes bright. 

The girl hops from the thicket. 

Peeta stops breathing. 

The girl circles the blanket, low and uneasy, growling a little at Peeta. 

He pulls out a cookie from the bag and tosses it gently towards her. She snatches it up and gobbles it down. She straightens a little on her haunches, brushes her flyaway hair from her dirty forehead. 

“Oh Katniss.” Peeta sighs. “I can’t wait to fatten her up” 

He pulls a cheese bun from the bag next, and rests it on his open palm, arm extended. 

Katniss looks at her husband, waiting for the skittish child and glows with pride. The girl scoots in closer, her small nose twitching. 

“Look at your little face,” Peeta murmurs, “so delicate, like an evening primrose.” 

Katniss places her hand over his. 

“We could name her that.” Katniss says softly, and places a kiss against the side of his head. 

The girl freezes, her hand hovering inches above Peeta’s outstretched offering. She looks between Katniss and Peeta. She looks down to where Katniss’s small hand rests over Peeta’s large one. Her eyes narrow. 

Her hand shoots out and she grabs Peeta’s wrist, knocking the cheese bun to the ground. Her thin fingers dig in, piercing his skin, red welling out. 

Katniss lunges forwards, only to be thrown back, the girl’s hand hitting her squarely in the chest, knocking her breath from her body. 

Peeta cries out in shock, wrenching his arm from the child. Blood sprays free. 

The child pounces on him, tumbling him back off the blanket and into the peat grass. Her nails tear at his flesh. He tries to buck her off, flailing as she grabs his shoulders and pushes him down into the dirt. 

Katniss gasps, crawling forward, a burning deep in her sternum, as the girl gives a wild screech. The ground ripples. 

Mud and peat begins swarming up over Peeta’s skin, sucking at his kicking feet, weighing over his hips, consuming his shoulders, sinking his body into the marsh. He reaches for Katniss, ignoring the child forcing him down, fingers outstretched towards her in desperate hope. 

Katniss reaches him just as the moss creeps up and covers his mouth. She brushes his twitching fingertips with her own before the earth rises over him completely, then sinks against with a soft whump. 

Katniss stares, at the empty space, at the lingering ghost of her husband’s pale outstretched fingers and the rippling soil. 

Only a dark patch of red soaked earth remains below the knees of the girl. 

The girl, Primrose they would have called her, huffs through her nose in satisfaction. 

She picks up a cheese bun slides her fingers, still warm and slick with Peeta’s blood, into Katniss’s own limp hand. 

She tugs Katniss into the forest, quacking happily. 

Little duck doesn’t like to share.

**Author's Note:**

> Halloween brought out some weird stories from me, sorry about that!   
I hope you enjoyed, let me know in the comments. 
> 
> Happy Halloween!


End file.
